DK, Thank you for sharing Wilfred Owen's poem. I think his is an important message and one that is easily forgotten as so many of us in the comfort of our homes are tempted to speak of war as a necessary evil. Or who sign the orders for others to kill or to die. If it is important enough for someone else to suffer and die for then it should be important enough for me to die for. If not, then perhaps we can find another way.

What strikes me is that with modern technology we can kill and yet be removed from the level of suffering and unjustness. A smart bomb hits the target, or just shy of it, and we don't see the results with our own eyes. We can't feel the death. And we don't really know if it was a man or a woman or a child. We don't ever even have to wonder who they were or what their lives were like. I look at my children and I know something of their dreams, their struggles and their triumphs. I know what makes them smile or cry or shout in frustration. I know their playfulness and beauty and the place within them where God dwells. I see their strength and their love. And I know that what is within my child is within us all and I pray we move beyond the level of suffering we are creating when we believe the lie that there is anything but heartache in war. I pray we are strong enough, brave enough, and compassionate enough to find a better way.

Love, Kristin

WWI was no doubt the most senseless, cynical war of the Twentieth Century.

Those who held power were anxious to test their new instruments of death: high-power artillery, airplanes, and poison gas. (Google War is a Racket.)

Dreams that humanity would harness industry and science to bridge humans and heal the wounds of misunderstanding were dashed summarily. Santos-Dumont, brilliant inventor and philosophical dreamer of the skies hanged himself as Brazilian airplanes fought overhead, riveting each other with bullets, sending each other crashing back to earth.

New century, same homones course through our veins. The same risks are encountered. How are we going to handle it? Who's going to be the real decider among us (if not us)?

There's an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor entitled, New Sermon from the Evengelical Pulpit: Global Warming. It aptly points out that Al Gore's plea, though entirely accurate, is likely to remain unanswered by the evangelical community. They don't like the way he dresses, the way he speaks, or the way he shakes hands, his terminology.

So how can we bridge the gulf? How can we use our dreams in order to build a better place for our children and their children yet satisfy our religious desires?

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Obama was too concilliatory for me. Maybe I was wrong.

Because it's going to take more than a simple Executive Order to undo the century and more of industrial climate change we've induced. It's going to take someone who can speak to us in spiritual (and even religous terms) in order to give it the heft and permanence this conversation demands. Like the scourge of slavery, the attitude that God's gift to us can be exploited with indifference and lacking grattitude has to be destroyed.

Because we're either going to create heaven or hell.

Besides, as we've just been reminded, executive mandates don't stick.

Never have.

Thank you for this poem, it was new for me. It reminds me of Heinrich Böll's "Wanderer kommst du nach Spa", the same feeling of absurdity.

I don't know how war can still be an alternative for some of us. Even in the midst of the greatest desperation and rage, the kind that the Iraki or Palestinian people must feel now, it should somehow be obvious that war means propagating pain for everyone. All we need is to notice the split second of silence between the impulse of violence and the violent action. In that second, we can change everything.

War is the product of lower consciouness.

Lower consciouness is the the absence of wisdom and intelligence.

War is inititated by a small number of individuals and not by the common people.

When decision making power is transfered to the collective there will be no more wars.

When we seek wisdom and intelligence and the voice of spirit is lifted to be heard above the ego chatter there will be an end of violent conflict and war.

Dear DK, long read! I confess I did not read it all...

Here, a contribution I just posted on my blog a couple days ago by Shawn Nevins:

Poem by: Shawn Nevins

I look without the veil of words
and that look is vaster than any thought of mine.

The desert is sparse and vast.
These words of ours are desert echoes.
What will be the call you hear?

A reflection, a glance,
one unguarded moment and all is known.

Look up and out, away from the world of man.
Such looking out is looking in.

The trees and your mind rest in the same clear, blue sky.

The body is leaving on its own,
swimming in a pool of silence that swallows every protest.

Writing about this destination is ludicrous.
Dip your mind into the setting sun.
Leaving by such passing is closer to the truth.

While all words fail to convey depth,
the wind carries a pervading message:
Lose your place in line,
turn to face your mystery,
and open your denying arms.

The dream doors have collapsed
and empty air speaks silent volumes.
Love is no answer.It already holds all in its grasp.

Your answer is beyond these dealings,
beyond thoughts and feelings,
and in the realm of seeing
all that is leaving --
holding to no thing that does not last.

I am the space between grassesblown by the wind.
Everything moves through me.

You turn to the world that beats at your door
because this body is tuned to life's needs and not your soul's.

Where is your true life among this fog of being?
Where is rest, satisfaction, solidity?

Only by remembering the possibilities,
wonder stolen by imagined consequences,

shuddering questions raised by fanciful twilight moments, and dreams of perfection,
will you close your door to this world,

then, later, let it pass through your empty home.
-- --- ------ --- --- --

When we can all find the "One God Within" ourselve's war would become obsolete.

with loving kindness,
North

Dear DK,

I am from the generation in Europe that has not experienced a war. I was born just after World War II. I think it is terrible what happened in those two wars and i guess i am not the only one.

I consider myself very lucky to be from this generation as it has experienced life from poverty towards slowly growing into comfortable wealth, for me both inside and outside.

I guess such poems remind you again of the uselessness of war and helps in building awareness. We will have to do it all together, both men and women :)

Dear Aurora,

I just read in the November Namasté letter that you won the contest on Healing the Heart.
I remember i did such a 3 day course in the beginning of this year here in my own country and how wholesome this as been :)

I would like to congratulate you with this achievement and wish you lots of success in December in San Diego.

Mieke

Thank you, Mieke :) It will be truly wonderful to finally see the place and meet the people from where all that love keeps pouring out. I'm glad that you had the opportunity to do a course and dig even deeper into the mystery inside.

I was thinking of your comment nr. 7. I haven't experienced war personally, but my parents have, and I know that their wounds have shaped me too. I don't think the trauma of war stays with the people who have directly experienced it. I think it affects everyone, everywhere. And I think that a center of peace affects everyone, too.

Hi Aurora,

I came across this gem on the internet:

"Man invents war. Man discovers peace.
He invents war from without.
He discovers peace from within.
War man throws. Peace man sows.
The smile of war is the flood of human blood.
The smile of peace is the love, below, above.

Peace is the whole truth that wishes to enrapture humanity.
War is the whole falsehood that wants to capture humanity.
Peace begins in the soul and ends in the heart.
War begins in the mind and ends in the body.

War forgets peace. Peace forgives war.
War is the death of the life human. Peace is the birth of the Life Divine.
Our vital passions want war.
Our psychic emotions desire peace.
War is clear futility in dire spear-stupidity.
Peace is flowing infinity in glowing eternity.

Man seeks war when he thinks that the world is not his.
Man invites war when he feels that he can conquer the world.
Man proclaims war when he dreams
That the world has already surrendered to him.

Man seeks peace because his earthly existence desperately needs it.
Man welcomes peace because he feels
that in peace alone is his life of achievement and fulfilment.
Man spreads peace because he wants to transcend death.

The animal in man wars against peace in the outer world,
in the world of conflicting ideas.
The divine in man wars against ignorance in the inner world,
in the world of mounting ideals.

The animal in man wants war for the sake of war,
war to devour the snoring world.
The divine in man wants peace for the sake of peace,
peace to feed the hungry world."

Hi Ravi,
If only, there were no need to send anyone,
of any age,
off to fight
wars
that are about politics,
money,
positioning

if only ...

there would be peace,
and no wars to fight.

Love,
~ Kate

Hi Richard,

Where's the REVELATION you were supposed to make on 11-11-2006?

Sanjeev

Hello DK and Everyone

To find a better way we need to look within and become strong in the absolute peace that is within all, just as a parent becomes strong in their silent, but direct and comanding gaze of Attention, directed at the child when the child is moving toward danger, we, all people, can become this commanding, direct, silent gaze, that communicates, clearly, that peace is all we will tolerate from this point on. If we are capable of commanding a war we are also capable of commanding a peace, but it comes from within, from a power that is silent, clear, and full of force. The force within is deafining in it's ability to silence the calls to war. Can you hear it?

peace ruth

Eleven Eleven 11:11 it's a phenomena.

infiniteplaythemovie.com/eleven_eleven_phenomena.aspx

or click my name and learn about it.

Actually one of my first memetic engineering experiments started 12 years ago.

It has also actually made it to prime time radio on coast to coast.

Now the 11-11-06 great dissemination which adds up to One begins.

Thank you for the poems on peace, Mieke, and everyone else.

Dear DK

Once again, your open spirit helps mine open more. That only one contributor to Intentblog thought to write on this subject tells half the reason for my respect and gratitude. Your choice of material, and generosity in anticipating where readers might have questions, tells the other half.

War is an accumulation of individual meannesses and cruelties. Stop the individual negative actions, and war cannot become. Each time any of us acts negatively to others -- man or any other living thing, or Gaia and the universe for that matter -- and each time we see a negative act and do nothing to counter it, we create more particles in the bed of fertile soil from which wars grow.

love, Heath

Dear DK and everyone,

on one of your past threads on climate change I told you about a documentary called "The Planet", which is shaking up Sweden these days, and you asked for my impressions about it. Swedish national television is now broadcasting it in four parts, four Thursdays in a row.

Anyone interested in knowing about the state of our home planet can watch it online at: http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=55174&lid=Planeten&from=menu

When you come to this page, UNDER the trailer picture, you will see the link "Se Planeten - del. 1" Click on it, and then in the new window, click on "Planeten del 1". The button "Fullskärm" will give you a full screen.

The images are amazing. The message is vital. PLEASE watch this movie.

Hi Aurora,

I have watched the movie and coincidentally an hour before that, i watched Al Gore´s documentary movie.

He ended with a list of all countries that signed the Kyoto treaty and are already doing a lot. There were two countries that did not sign it, one of which bears a great responsibility towards the images shown.

Thank you Mieke. Please let your awareness spread.